Recovery
by Impressionisticalis
Summary: Deku has a little problem that he doesn't know is a problem. And he needs help. Lots of it. Rated Mature for drugs.
1. Chapter 1

The anxiety had always affected Izuku, to the point where he couldn't go outside sometimes. Everything about the great outdoors terrified him, from the people who stared at him, to the chance that he would run into someone unpleasant, to if he was caught up in a large crowd. Yet, it was something a hero must do, he told himself, as he stared in his mirror. It's necessary, he repeated to himself.

Somewhere along the line, "it's necessary" had become less like a small saying to help him get through the day, to the only thing repeated in his brain. He thought about when that was. Maybe when he was younger and had been accepted into the UA? No, probably much earlier than that. Maybe from the time he had entered middle school? That felt about right, he reasoned.

Accidentally, or perhaps out of habit, his eyes wandered to his bedside drawer. Of course he knew what the consequences of using the items in there were. If he was caught doing it, he would get in trouble, the likes of which he had never experienced. If he didn't use it, the panic of going outside might overwhelm him. Besides, it wasn't too harmful. He could stop whenever he wanted. A small smile graced Izuku's face as he thought of that fact: he could stop using those things whenever he wanted to.

He opened the drawer, and took out a syringe and a belt. "It's necessary," Izuku told himself, as he methodically wrapped the belt around his arm, cutting off the circulation for now. Then the syringe was put in his arm, the plunger was pressed down, and he breathed a sigh of relief. One more day of being Deku, he thought as he put away the items. "It's necessary..." he repeated once more to himself as the drug started to flow through his system.

That small smile turned into a much larger one, as it officially started to kick in. His eyelids drooped, but then he opened his eyes wide. "Come on, Deku, it's necessary," Izuku told himself once more, slapping his cheeks. Even with it in his system, he must maintain his normal personality, the one people have come to expect from him.

He left his room, and joined Uraraka in the corridor, ready for another day of school, just boring classes and perhaps some afternoon physical training. Of course, today he had other plans too, after the day was done.

Once his school day was over, and he was walking out of the classroom, Uraraka stopped Izuku.

"Hey, Midoriya! Do you wanna hang out after school today? There's a new ice cream stand," she said, her voice barely managing to hold back the nervousness. She wasn't used to being confrontational, but there was no real way around being like that; Izuku certainly wasn't going to ask her.

"Oh, uh... I can't today, sorry," he replied, giving her an apologetic smile. On any other day, he would have gone, but today he had something to do after school, and that was more important than hanging out with Uraraka, especially when he was living in the same dorm as her.

"Why? What are you doing?" She asked, her cheerful demeanor stopping a bit.

"Oh... just visiting..." He thought about it for a second. "My mother. It's been a while and I miss seeing her."

She nodded, that demeanor going back up. "Okay, I hope you have a fun time, then!" She said, leaving the classroom with a heavy feeling. The two, despite being rather close, hadn't hung out in a very long time, and she missed his companionship. It didn't even have anything to do with her crush at this point. She was worried about him. What had prompted this change in him, she asked herself? Even in class, he had been so much more relaxed for the past few months than when he had first started. Perhaps he had gotten over his fears, but something told her that wasn't all. For now, though, she decided to trust in him telling her if he was okay, and ignored that heavy feeling. There was ice cream at hand, anyways.

Deku smiled at her, and walked out, going in the opposite direction as her. His destined location was a place in the school where there were no security cameras: the men's bathroom on the third floor. There, he met his contact. He didn't realize at first that this person was the one who had supplies. He had always seemed only obsessed with Class A, and nothing else. That just goes to show how much you might know about a person, Izuku thought to himself.

Neito stepped out of one of the stalls, a grin on his face. "Hey, Deku," he said, a little bit of a drawl. "How was the class today?"

"Oh, it was just fine. A little boring."

"That's cool. I have the supplies for you." Neito jabbed a thumb at the bathroom stall. "Your job to figure out how you're going to get them all into your room."

Izuku didn't respond or pay attention. He just was counting the money he owed Neito. It was all in there, but he just liked to make sure. Then he handed the rolled-up wad to him. "Where are they again?"

Neito sighed and pointed at the bathroom stall from which he had just left. "That one, you moron. God, this explains why you all are so stupid in Class A. One day we will all DESTROY you!" He said, the anger building up rather quickly.

Of course Izuku didn't care. He just walked into that bathroom stall, and closed the door behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Ochako thought of herself as a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. And she wasn't going to roll over for whatever Izuku was hiding from her. She knew something had to be going on in his life for a few months. He had just gotten so distant from her. As she spoke to herself in her head about the issue, she almost started trying to justify what his actions meant. Maybe he was just so busy with extracurriculars? No, she knew that wasn't it. Izuku wasn't the kind of person to keep on doing more and more extracurriculars. Sports? Would any team have him on because of his super strength?

No, it was something else. And she could tell that it wasn't good. Which is why she was thinking about checking in his room. If it was something small, she would just know if she checked in his room, right? They had previously talked about places where each hid separate things from their parents, and he had mentioned he always hid things from his mother under his bed. Maybe she'd find something there. And once she did, she'd talk to him about it.

She was being a good friend. She wasn't being obsessed. He was the one being obsessed or something, she thought. He kept on avoiding hanging out with her every day now, unless they had a serious school project. Even then, he would take a bathroom break for a long time, and at one point she had actually left because he spent so long in there. She was still his friend; it was HER job to make sure that he was okay.

Ochako stood outside of Izuku's room, and took one last deep breath. Then she slowly pulled the knob, opening the door without a creak, and slid right in. The door clicked shut quietly behind her. He still had numerous posters of All Might hanging about his room. She almost breathed a sigh of relief. She had seen him leave earlier, but was so worried he had found his way back in the room afterwards. "Thank goodness..." she whispered, finally going to the bed with the dark teal blanket on top. She knelt down at the bedframe, and ducked down to look underneath.

What she saw underneath wasn't too much: there were two boxes in there, nothing too much. She took them out and opened them just as a precaution, but inside, there wasn't anything other than magazines. She even sifted through them, just to make sure. At the bottom of one box was a magazine with a questionable cover, which she immediately put back, but other than that, there wasn't much that was too questionable about it. And then she heard footsteps out the door, and a muted Izuku talking to someone else on the other side of the door.

Panic could not accurately convey the amount of terror she felt in that moment. She didn't want Izuku of all people to think of her as some sort of weirdo, or creep! She slowly, quietly, pushed the boxes of magazines under the bed once more, as he had his conversation outside of his door. Then she stood up and looked around desperately at where she could hide. Her gaze focused on the bed again. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but it could possibly be the best thing to get her out of this situation. She laid down the floor and rapidly shimmied her way under the bed, then curled up into a ball so she wasn't touching the magazines, particularly the box with the questionable one.

The door opened, and Ochako could see Izuku's feet walking through the room, and stopped for a second at the front of the bed, next to Ochako's head. She didn't move a muscle, and even forgot to breathe for a split second. He stayed there, then walked clearly to his desk. He bent over at it, and withdrew something from a drawer. Her eyes widened as she watched. Clearly, the bed was not the hiding place he chose for whatever that was.

She didn't see what he did with whatever he withdrew from the drawer, but she heard the sigh of relief after a minute, and then she saw him throw something away. She blinked once and tried to process it. Was that a syringe? Why would Izuku, of all people, need a syringe? Suddenly, a conclusion began forming in her mind, and she could barely contain herself from running and checking the drawer herself. It took all the mental fortitude she had to watch him sit down for a minute, then stand up and walk to the door, and back out the room.

As soon as Izuku left, she practically jumped from underneath the bed, and stretched. She debated between the trash can and the desk. In the end, the trash can was safest to investigate from, right? He didn't check the trash. He would check the drawer. She looked across his desk for some sort of tissues, and found a tissue box. Her face grimaced as she realized the purpose of said tissues, but she still took one, albeit with as little contact as possible. She reached into the trash can, grimacing all the more (there was quite a lot of trash, as if he didn't empty it out recently), and pulled out the syringe resting on the top, then put it in her pocket as carefully as possible. Then she ran outside of Izuku's room.

When she ran back to her own room, she had a surprise encounter. Izuku was turning the corner of the one she was running at, and they crashed into each other. Izuku stumbled back and fell on his rear, obviously a little frazzled, seemingly not noticing that he fell. Ochako stopped back a little bit, and instantly felt her pocket to know if the needle was still inside, quite obviously a lot more frazzled than Izuku.

He finally blinked and looked up at her while she was doing so. "Uraraka...? What are you doing?"

"Oh, n-nothing!" She immediately did a salute and shot a very nervously faked smile in Izuku's direction. "Just... um... need to go to the bathroom real quick! No time to waste!"

He chuckled a bit, and then stood up after a second more. "Alright... Well, wouldn't want to hold you up. I'm sorry about crashing into you."

"DON'TWORRYABOUTITBYE!" Ochako shouted behind her, for she had already taken off and was running towards her own bedroom.

Once she got inside, she immediately shut the door and pulled out the needle. She didn't know the use of it. But it did have a little brand name on it, right in the top corner. And her laptop was ready for some heavy Internet surfing. She looked around, and started the search on what was in Izuku's trash can.


End file.
